About the lie that Washington “didn’t do enough” for Boeing

This is partly about neoliberal corporate executives chasing non-union low wages, as Charles Mudede alluded to at Slog yesterday, but it’s also an attack on unionism itself. This isn’t about economics, it’s about an ideology that long ago concluded the very existence of unions is an affront. Face it, there are many, many people in our society who would gladly abolish unions if they could, but since they can’t, the next best thing is to create conditions where forming unions is next to impossible and put an Orwellian moniker like “right to work” on them.

So while the taxpayers of Washington state got to pay and pay and pay in a somewhat futile attempt to appease Boeing, now the citizens of South Carolina get to pay and pay and pay. Hell, we’ll all probably wind up paying still, because Republicans and the bidness guys and gals are already preparing to use this as an attack issue, claiming without any credibility that Washington state is somehow a bad place to do business, when numerous measures rank us fairly high. Plus we’ll all get to continue to pay for military work done by Boeing. (Earth to powerful US Senators, come in US Senators…)

Notice that in this “free market” economy, the transfer of wealth is from regular people to giant corporations, their shareholders and officers, and that tax dollars are extorted from all of us to make it so. Then when the system nearly crushes everyone and a neoliberal has to resort to extraordinary means to avert a world-wide cliff dive, he is attacked as an authoritarian tyrant in order to keep the peasants divided, even as he and his predecessor fork over billions of taxpayer dollars to prop up the decayed neoliberal order. It’s “socialism” if regular people get routine medical care, but it’s “free market” economics if corporations are not only awarded huge profits but literally paid off.

Capital, of course, is prized in our system above all else. Land, ie property and the means of production, also enjoys a high status. Labor is semi-disposable, and nothing infuriates neoliberals like workers who don’t realize their place in the pecking order. Boeing is putting labor in its place, both out of pique and as a warning to anyone who would challenge the existing order of things.

I’m quite certain skilled politicians instinctively understand the situation, and the interesting question is: now what? Boeing supposedly will still have a large presence in the state, and it needs a transition time to get the South Carolina facility up and running.

Since one of Boeing’s complaints is a lack of qualified engineers in Washington state, what say they pitch in now and help offset those massive tuition increases from last session? Surely Boeing won’t need all of that $3.2 billion in tax incentives over the next fifteen years or so, seeing as the people of South Carolina are being so generous.

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Boeing is past its prime and is on the way down. Let them go. Whatever they reap, they have sown themselves. If Boeing is ever to see the halcyon days again, they will have to dramatically re-invent themselves. That is not possible with the current executive and board compliment.

I know someone very high up trying to salvage the Dreamliner debacle. Boeing has conflated technology priorities with the need to earn X per share within Y timeframe.

Boeing will fall a long way before redemption comes in a far away future. (At least as far as Wall Street is concerned it is a far away future.)

Amen, Jon. As a guy who has spent most of his life in this state, I am proud that Boeing decided to do more business with South Carolina. That indicates this state still has some balls when it comes to confronting corporate welfare. Unions represent the heart of American democracy. South Carolina can have Boeing, until 10 years from now it moves to India. As a state, we have won.

Boeing is committing suicide. How the hell does anyone expect, to see the $14-$18/hr non-union workers who screwed the pooch on the sec 2 and 3 fuselage formings to build entire aircraft without any benefit of the experienced personnel that Boeing already has in the Everett crews?

Boeing has now invested a total of $12.5 BILLION in developing this aircraft, including ancillaries such as tooling, assembly jigs (now being totally scrapped and redesigned), materials research and structural design, as well as a whole new, as yet mostly untested, avionics system that would allow for totally robotic flight.

Our understanding of this material is not mature yet, we as humans do not understand the limits and possibilities of this carbon fiber/kevlar composite tape they are building the entire aircraft with. I firmly believe that this material is not suitable for the application. It didn’t work with the Beechcraft, it didn’t work with the B-2 “stealth” bomber, and nobody really knows how it is going to behave under the wide variances of stresses of temperature, humidity and impact from airstream pressure as well as takeoff/landing cycles.

Culmative, small damages over time can take months or years to properly assess in an airframe. Simple wear and tear from normal, in-parameter usage and stress tolerances can be impossible to assess until catastrophic failure occurs. The de Havilland Comet proved that.

All that, and now it is nearly 3 years overdue for its maiden flight, and has never ever even once been successfully assembled. This plane will never see production. Boeing has gone stupid, and may possibly not survive more than 10 more years as an aircraft manufacturer. The top Management is already getting ready to cut and run.

Just watch over the next year or two. All the top execs will start “retiring” with nice fat golden umbrellas, and the company will eat its own head, just like Enron, GMC and Morgan Stanley.

The money we’ve been giving Boeing is better spent building up other industries, businesses and workers.

Current Boeing employees jobs are just as safe this week as they were last week, which is not very. Boeing has a long history of boom and bust employment cycles and fighting with unions.

Most Boeing workers I’ve known always worked with the thought of a layoff looming over their shoulder. Others of us took lower paying stable jobs instead of working for Boeing, figuring it was better to make less an hour and not have to worry about layoffs and strikes.

The new Boeing management team has taken the most productive, efficient, and profitable aerospace workforce in the history of the world, and turned it into a joke. Generations of workers here built the company with pride and commitment over almost a century, and this team is destroying it in less than a decade.

Its all based on wingnut business theory from people who never built a car much less a plane. This dreamliner is a joke. The last series of dreamliners were the most profitable and efficient in history, and engineers will tell you they had many of the problems of the dreamliner. The difference is that the machinists and engineers worked together to solve these problems to deliver on time, and make record profits for the company. This is their reward.

This is one of the most sophisticated and complex design and nmanufacturing processes in the world, and cannot be assembled like legos. Planes have to be manufactured and built to 300 percent tolerances- that is three times more stress capability than they will ever be subject to under operating cconditions. Now our workforce will have to fix all the mistakes coming out of S. Carolina along with the problems coming from the Boeing supply chain they were so proud to anounce will come from over 30 countries around the world.

The management looted this company, canned their experienced people, fought an eight week strike over less than three days profits when the lines are running full, lied to our legislature, governor, media and citizens, and mostly lied to the people who built the company. They are taking the money they extorted from us and are running. They will retire with fat bonus packages but leave the company in ruins. But for the miltary corporate welfare, the company might be dead now.

We will hear wingnut hysteria and lies about what happened, but its all BS. Mark my words. If Boeing is still around in ten years, they will dump SC for SE Asia. They are gone, gone,gone.

My big concern is when will these planes start dropping out of the sky? But the execs don’t care since they will be gone to fat retirements. If that happens, they should be criminally liable. If they are not, we should hunt the bastards down.

I was thinking about the 737 replacement, and maybe it won’t be built here or in South Carolina. Too many potential competitors. I am going to use a rail example here, not passenger car market, but the locomotive makers. The Big Three of Steam did not give much thought to that new diesel thing at first, thought it was a passenger gimmick, they put their faith in the idea that freight would be forever steam, continuing to market their products, and even work on adding more powerful ones. The Diesels had a better option, GM-EMD noticed that with the Diesel, if they could power all the axles, they could produce a lot of traffic effort, while the Steamers had trailing and pilot axles that were idlers, Baldwin and Lima fell behind quickly, while the American Locomotive Company, did start working on Diesels in the 1930s. Which was ironic, Alco would be the last of the Big Three of Steam to fail in the Diesel Era and fall, in 1969. EMD, the upstart, combined with General Electric, got to 1 and 2 and never looked back. They are still making locomotives today, and GE even makes locos in America still, in Erie, PA.(GM sold EMD a few years ago, they build their locomotives in Canada). They standardized though, around the six-axle design, but the older GP-40s are getting old, and are dirty, and since these are used on local trains and in yard service, they are cleaning up their act. It has opened up a new market, with 5-6 new entrants. The same potential is hitting the 737-size jets, Bombardier is working on the CSeries, which is approaching 737 capability, and so is Embraer of Brazil, and there are several manufacturers in Japan, Russia, and China that are entering the market. Airbus and Boeing might end up surrendering this market and stay with the higher end jets.

I wonder how much of Wal-Mart’s merchandies is actually touched in the supply chain by Union Labor, besides probably the Longshoremen. If anything is moved by rail in this country, the Brotherhoods have the Big Four for sure(UP, BNSF, CSX, and Norfolk Southern). I have even seen militantly non-union FedEx moving some freight by rail lately. They must have watched CSX and NS’s commercials.

Also, those who knock unions, better watch out, many of those involved in the Miracle on the Hudson were Union, the Captain, Co-Pilot, Flight Attendants, fireman(FDNY Fireboats caught the call), Air Traffic Controllers(NATCA represents them now, not PATCO), and maybe even the ferry company as well. Also, I seem to recall one of the crewmembers of the Maersk Alabama when they were saying they did not really give up the ship, they mentioned the “We’re Union” line, and suddenly the news cycle changed. The Matson Line might disagree, remember the Great Matson line strike of 2009? Probably not, it was only in the Seattle media for a few hours, because it was just one radio operator on one ship at the Port of Seattle. The longshoreman honored his picket line, saying they would not load a ship that was without a full crew, saying it was unsafe. The ship was only going from Seattle to Oakland and then on to Honolulu. As for the Maersk Alabama, these Union Members lured one of the pirates into a room where the others were hiding, and turned the tables on them, leading to the standoff that ended up with the Navy Seals taking down the Pirates in the lifeboat and rescuing the Captain.

I just don’t like the people who automatically bsh unions saying that we have to accept lower wages, and give up everybody people fought and DIED for. I gave up trying to comment in the news stories on Seattlepi.com because of so many unregistered users just repeating the same stuff. Part of the reason we are stuck in the one party system we got, where the DLC pulls the strings behind the Democratic Party no matter who gets in that seems to not be a member, knowing their is no alternative. The Republican Party then has a talking point to use against the Democratic Party. At least in Germany they have alternative parties, the Grand Coalition worked for 4 years. The Free Democrats are Pro-Business but Liberal on everything else. They and the CDU/CSU Alliance won last month’s election. The coalition talks almost fell apart over the size of a tax cut, the CDU at first said the FDP was asking for too much. They compromised, probably fearing the worst thing that could happen, a coalition of the CDU/CSU, and or SDU, Greens and the Left Party. The latter is a pariah in the eyes of the SDU, because they are the remnants of the East German Communists. The bad news for the SDU, is the Left got 10+% of the vote, at their expense. 4 years ago, both Center-Right and Center-Left worked together. The main stumbling block in 2005 to the Grand Coalition was Shroeder the incumbent was drunk on power and thought, with the opponent having only 1% more than they did, he could still be chancellor, but he changed his mind, and history was made. First Chancellor elected from the former East Germany.

One of the weaknesses of Progressivism in Washington is a belief that businesses have no choices and can be pushed around at will.

If you don’t think other major employers haven’t noticed the treatment Boeing has received…guess again. The floodgates are open. I know of numerous businesses that have QUIETLY moved production facilities…eliminating living wage jobs in Washington. Rising L&I, Unemployment and especially the UNDERREPORTED B&O Tax was the last straw. Excessive local regulation was the main cause…good intentioned, underinformed ideologues called Enviro’s gone MAD!

The chickens are coming home to roost. Other states say “Business is welcome!”

Washington and local governments say “If you want to do business here, you are gonna pay dearly and be subject to lots & lots of rules!”

This is the difference between neo-Progressivises and True Conservatives. It’s the old adage of the carrot and the stick. Conservatives INCENT folks to do the right thing. Neo-Progs take out the stick and beat ’em to death when they don’t follow instructions.

Where would YOU rather do business? Big Government/lots of rules State like Washington?? Or a State with real incentives.

Your vicious anger towards business shows the Guv’mint employee mind-numbing arrogant attitude and lack of understand about how real wealth is built. Idiots.

From a real winner state Montana, isn’t she? A place overflowing with industry and big business expertise. Attracting major businesses right and left.

Greedy Phony Christian asshole. Figures she’s God’s Special Assistant for condemnation and and assignment of all us Hellbound Atheists. Doesn’t know what a Bible is or says, but surely is qualified to judge others.

You’re a fucking cesspool swimmer, Cynical.

Now go to the temple and loudly thank God that you’re better than all of us.

The difference between $14 an hour, and the IAM wage is a tax on future Boeing employees working on that 787 line; a tax paid directly to the company thorugh a payroll deduction that is never accounted for, to people one cannot vote out in the next election.

Goldy, it is apparent that you and most of your readers lack a basic, fundamental understanding of business matters, particularly manufacturing sector. So, dribble as you must, HR costs are probably at least the second most costly component of aircraft construction. So most companies need to work on holding and reducing those costs through lower wages, less benefits, outsourcing (anywhere), and robotics. When our Governor spends two campaign seasons marching with striking workers, it sends a message to the company. Did the state do enough, NO, were state issues the main cause, who knows, was the union’s attitude a huge factor, Yes, are you advancing the cause of good jobs and solid communities in Puget Sound with your edgy hollow, predictable dribble…..NO. I will commit to continue to hit your aptly named blog so I can stay aware of the mind set of those who are only “takers” of our society. The “contributors”, now obviously a minority in Puget Sound, will have to find meaningful, balanced information since our newspapers have become sinking, daily magazines of mediocrity.

It is interesting that they intend to run the SC plant at almost half the rate as the Everett plant (according to the ST report). Paying people half as much, and building them half as fast, points to total compensation and costs.

Car companies from around the world are putting facilities in the US. All of that chasing the intersection of productivity and moderate compensation costs. The healthcare reform bill going into debate on Tuesday might turn some of this on its head.

Airlines are under the crunch to make their fleet more fuel efficient. The greenies are crying over the “air pollution” jets place into the atmosphere. Boeing took a chance to make a carbon fiber plane. Since it’s new technology Boeing is investigating how to make it work.

Okay, Boeing has screwed the pooch on it’s delivery schedule. Some countries have demanded Boeing make parts in their local environment for access to their international cities. China demanded Boeing place a 737 assembly line in China and Airbus did the same on the A320.

Now, when the airplane flies, it will have to pass more than the normal FAA tests being carbon fiber. Since the airframe comprises nearly half carbon fiber reinforced plastic and other composites this offered to Boeing a 20 percent weight loss compared to more conventional aluminum designs. We’ll see what happens. One of Puddy’s neighbors works on the 787. There have been measurement issues in this disparate manufacturing process. Part of it is because Boeing wants to get business from other world locations vs ceding those locations to AirBus.

So Roger Rabbit ride an AirBus all you want. You remind Puddy of the Boeing union worker who screams about Boeing yet drives a non-UAW car. You know they want UAW members to take Boeing planes on their trips. Puddy will take Boeing over ScareBus any day of the week.

The practice of giant corporations extorting tax breaks, subsidies, and giveaways from localities hungry for jobs isn’t confined to Boeing. It’s a widespread cancer afflicting every state. It’s gone on for a long time, and companies have become adept at playing communities off each other to maximize the benefits they can extract from taxpayers. It’s way past time to put an end to this game by making so-called “incentives” illegal. The best way to do that is by passing laws that make it a felony for corporation execs to solicit tax breaks, subsidies, or other giveaways from state and local governments.

“Boeing is putting labor in its place, both out of pique and as a warning to anyone who would challenge the existing order of things.”

Actually, Jon, I don’t quite agree with this — it’s too polemical. Boeing’s move to SC is a reaction to the 2008 strike, which in turn was the workers’ angry reaction to the stomping they took from management in 2002. There’s little or no ideology involved, unless you call “payback” an ideology. The cycle will continue; there will be payback from the union for this, too, followed by another round of retaliation from management. Boeing has gotten itself a labor war.

And, of course, the cut-and-run monkeys in the local media are calling upon IAW to wave the white flag of surrender. Easy for them to say; they don’t work there. This country didn’t get its huge middle class by unions caving in to 19th century captains of industry. They fought, sometimes in the streets, sometimes against army troops sent to quell worker rights and prop up the monopolies, and workers and their families bled and died when necessary but America has a middle class today because the battles for worker rights a century ago were won.

Remember that when you read the lackey media’s editorials demanding the union “back off” or even suggesting Pacific Northwest workers decertify their unions here, too. Boeing has declared war on organized labor; this is no time to back off anything. This is a time to dust off the old battle flags — and fight.

Airlines are under the crunch to make their fleet more fuel efficient. The greenies are crying over the “air pollution” jets place into the atmosphere. Boeing took a chance to make a carbon fiber plane. Since it’s new technology Boeing is investigating how to make it work.

Okay, Boeing has screwed the pooch on it’s delivery schedule. Some countries have demanded Boeing make parts in their local environment for access to their international cities. China demanded Boeing place a 737 assembly line in China and Airbus did the same on the A320.

Now, when the airplane flies, it will have to pass more than the normal FAA tests being carbon fiber. Since the airframe comprises nearly half carbon fiber reinforced plastic and other composites this offered to Boeing a 20 percent weight loss compared to more conventional aluminum designs. We’ll see what happens. One of Puddy’s neighbors works on the 787. There have been measurement issues in this disparate manufacturing process. Part of it is because Boeing wants to get business from other world locations vs ceding those locations to AirBus.

So Roger Rabbit ride an AirBus all you want. You remind Puddy of the Boeing union worker who screams about Boeing yet drives a non-UAW car. You know they want UAW members to take Boeing planes on their trips. Puddy will take Boeing over ScareBus any day of the week

Xad drives Olds 98…..what does Puddy drive? Just out of curiosity?

I missed your union bashing. would you mind referencing the relevant anti-union posts you made so that I can read them (little short on time these days….sorry)

@6 Ten years from now Boeing will be a Chinese company in all but name. Fifteen years from now, with trillions of dollars of U.S. IOUs in their treasury and control of the world’s ability to manufacture planes and ships and tanks, they’ll invade Taiwan and dare us to do anything bout it.

@8 “GM-EMD noticed that with the Diesel, if they could power all the axles, they could produce a lot of traffic effort”

You mean tractive effort.

Steam locomotives died for 3 major reasons, all of which made steam costlier than diesels.

1. They required frequent maintenance. 2. They required coal, water, and ash handling facilities spaced at short intervals all along the track system. 3. The reciprocating action of the drive wheels pounded the rails, requiring frequent track maintenance.

Who doesn’t leave steam trains? But they bled the railroads white. Imagine trying to run a shipping company today with wood sailing ships that were expensive to build, lasted only 5 to 10 years on average, required large crews to operate, and could haul only a few tons of cargo. Same situation. Steam trains and sailing ships were primitive technologies whose inefficiency killed them off. And you sure as hell wouldn’t want to work on them under the working conditions the old-timers put up with.

Why are you complaining? He’s only parroting the Wingnut Line. The last couple days these comment threads have been full of wingnut gloating that Boeing screwed the Washington taxpayers who gave them $3.2 billion by taking these jobs to a right-to-work state. You guys are overjoyed that Dreamliners will be assembled by people making only $2,000 a year more than the federal poverty line for a family of four. If the 787’s second production line had been awarded to Everett, you and the rest of the trolls would have been glum.

@11 “One of the weaknesses of Progressivism in Washington is a belief that businesses have no choices and can be pushed around at will.”

One of the weaknesses of Ayn Rand capitalism is that businesses think they can push around workers at will. In the end, they shoot their own balls off, because workers making low wages have no money to spend and then businesses have no customers.

Yada yada. The same pack of lies. Washington is the #5 business-friendly state. Even if we were #1 you and your ilk would go around saying capitalism is on its last legs in this state. You bastards won’t be satisfied until everyone is making India wages.

HR costs are probably at least the second most costly component of aircraft construction.

If these companies would stop treating employees like disposable trash, HR costs would not be high. This is a choice made by upper management.

We have lost track of the purpose of society. It isn’t to funnel all the money to a few people at the top. The purpose of society is to make it as harmonious and fruitful for as many people as possible. A prosperous and happy middle class is how this happened.

The United State has been gutted by misguided business school graduates who don’t have a clue what the purpose of life really is.

TPN repeats the claim that S.C. workers earn $14.00 per hour. The comparison which is usually made is that Boeing workers make $28.00 per hour, on average. Sometimes they go even further, pointing out that some Boeing workers make wages in the low $40.00 per hour.

In reality, the 787 line workers are mostly new, hired within the past three years. They started out at $14.00 per hour, and after the strike and now that they have trained and have 2-3 years of experience, they are making about $18.00 per hour. That’s really not that big a pay differential between the two opposite ends of the country, considering the substantial investment (and training) Boeing will have to put into the new S.C. workers.

Of course, Boeing will sometimes compare apples and oranges, using S.C. “gross pay” and then Washington “gross pay plus benefits” numbers. It takes some work to dig through the statistics, and of course Boeing has all the statistics and doesn’t want to show the details.

The real cost to Boeing, however, is in management screw-ups. Forget for now the biggest screw-ups, like the outsourcing of design and manufacture of major assemblies, or the idea that an airframe is a leggo toy that can be snapped together in three days with a handful of workers.

Let’s instead look at the everyday screw-ups. Like randomly insisting that benchmarks have to be met by ordering mechanics to start working 10 hour days, six days a week. Seems like a good idea at the corporate level. So now you have two shifts of workers working ten-hour days plus weekends, only to spend the additional time standing around waiting for parts to arrive, or for engineering to complete drawing revisions or buy off on spec changes (engineers not ordered in on the same schedule). Any idea how much overtime costs are waisted? And the executives are blaming the union workers on the shop floor for their high labor costs and lack of productivity?

Years ago, when the 777 was having production problems, I spoke with a team supervisor on the factory floor. I asked him if the new hires were helping speed things up. “Well, last week I had seven guys standing around with their hands in their pockets, waiting for parts to arrive”, he said. “Now I have ten guys standing around, waiting for parts to arrive.”

At the time I thought that was a worse as it was going to get. I had no idea that it was going to get much, much worse.

That’s right, it takes just 3 minutes to win any argument against a wingnut, because the right is all about one thing: Cheap labor.

“Have you got three minutes. Because that’s all you need to learn how to defeat the Republican Right. Just read through this handy guide and you’ll have everything you need to successfully debunk right-wing propaganda. …

“First, you have to beat their ideology, which really isn’t that difficult. At bottom, conservatives believe in a social hierarchy of ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ …. They have taken this corrosive social vision and dressed it up with a ‘respectable’ sounding ideology [which] is pure hogwash, and you can prove it.

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“So you need a … good … ‘counter-slogan’ … to ‘deprogram’ the brainwashed … that quickly and efficiently destroys the effectiveness of their ‘drum beat’. You need your own ‘drum beat’ that … exposes the ugly reality of right-wing philosophy – the reality their slogans are meant to hide. Our slogan contains the governing concept that explains the entire right-wing agenda. … You can see it in every policy, and virtually all … Republican rhetoric. And it’s so easy to remember, and captures the essence of the Republican Right so well, we can pin it on them like a ‘scarlet letter’.

“Is there really a catch phrase – a ‘magic bullet’ – that sums up the Republican Right in such a nice easy-to-grasp package[?] You better believe it, and it’s downright elegant in its simplicity. …

“Right-Wing Ideology in a Nutshell

“When you cut right through it, right-wing ideology is just ‘dime-store economics’ –- intended to dress their ideology up and make it look respectable. You don’t really need to know much about economics to understand it. They certainly don’t. It all gets down to two simple words. ‘Cheap labor’.

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“‘Cheap-labor conservative’ is a moniker they will never shake, and never live down, because it’s exactly what they are. … [C]heap-labor conservatives are defenders of corporate America, whose fortunes depend on labor. The larger the labor supply, the cheaper it is. The more desperately you need a job, the cheaper you’ll work, and the more power those ‘corporate lords’ have over you. If you are a wealthy elite – or a ‘wannabe’ like most dittoheads – your wealth, power and privilege is enhanced by a labor pool [that is] forced to work cheap.

“Don’t believe me[?] Well, let’s apply this principle, and see how many right-wing positions become instantly understandable.

“Cheap-labor conservatives don’t like social spending or our ‘safety net’. Why[?] Because when you’re unemployed and desperate, corporations can pay you whatever they feel like –- which is inevitably next to nothing. You see, they want you ‘over a barrel’ and [forced] to ‘work cheap or starve’.

“Cheap-labor conservatives don’t like the minimum wage, or other improvements in wages and working conditions. Why[?] These reforms undo all of their efforts to keep you ‘over a barrel’.

“Cheap-labor conservatives like ‘free trade’, NAFTA, GATT, etc. Why[?] Because there is a huge supply of desperately poor people in the third world who are ‘over a barrel’ and will work cheap.

“Cheap-labor conservatives oppose a woman’s right to choose. Why[?] Unwanted children are an economic burden that put poor women ‘over a barrel’, forcing them to work cheap.

“Cheap-labor conservatives constantly bray about ‘morality’, ‘virtue’, ‘respect for authority’, ‘hard work’ and other ‘values’. Why[?] So they can blame your being ‘over a barrel’ on your own ‘immorality’, lack of ‘values’ and ‘poor choices’.

“Cheap-labor conservatives encourage racism, misogyny, homophobia and other forms of bigotry. Why? Bigotry among wage earners distracts them and keeps them from recognizing their common interests as wage earners.

“Maybe you don’t believe that cheap-labor conservatives like unemployment, poverty and ‘cheap labor’. Consider these facts.

“Unemployment was 23 percent when FDR took office in 1933. It dropped to 2.5 percent by time the next Republican was in the White House in 1953. It climbed back to 6.5 percent by the end of the Eisenhower administration. It dropped to 3.5 percent by the time LBJ left office. It climbed over 5 percent shortly after Nixon took office, and stayed there for 27 years, until Clinton brought it down to 4.5 percent early in his second term.

“That same period – especially from the late forties into the early seventies – was the ‘golden age’ of the United States. We sent men to the moon. We built our Interstate Highway system. We ended segregation in the South and established Medicare. In those days, a single wage earner could support an entire family on his wages. I grew up then, and I will tell you that life was good ….

“In fact, cheap-labor conservatives have howled with outrage and indignation against New Deal liberalism from its inception in the 1930’s all the way to the present. You can go to ‘Free Republic’ or Hannity’s forum right now and find a cheap-labor conservative comparing New Deal Liberalism to ‘Stalinism’.

“Cheap-labor conservatives opposed virtually all of the New Deal, including every improvement in wages and working conditions.

“Cheap-labor conservatives have a long and sorry history of opposing virtually every advancement in this country’s development going right back to the American revolution.

“Cheap-labor conservatives have hated Social Security and Medicare since their inception.

“Many cheap-labor conservatives are hostile to public education. They think it should be privatized. … Cheap-labor conservatives opposed universal public education in its early days. School vouchers are just a backdoor method to ‘resegregate’ the public schools.

“Cheap-labor conservatives hate the progressive income tax like the devil hates holy water.

“Cheap-labor conservatives like budget deficits and a huge national debt for two reasons. A bankrupt government has a harder time doing any ‘social spending’ – which cheap-labor conservatives oppose, and …

“Wealthy cheap-labor conservatives … buy the bonds and … earn … interest on the money they lend the government. …

“‘Free Trade’, globalization, NAFTA and especially GATT are intended to create a world-wide ‘corporate playground’ where national governments serve the interests of corporations – which means ‘cheap labor’.

“The ugly truth is that cheap-labor conservatives just don’t like working people. They don’t like ‘bottom up’ prosperity, and the reason for it is very simple. Lords have a harder time kicking them around. Once you understand this about the cheap-labor conservatives, the real motivation for their policies makes perfect sense.

“Remember, cheap-labor conservatives believe in social hierarchy and privilege, so the only prosperity they want is limited to them. They want to see absolutely nothing that benefits the guy or woman who works for an hourly wage.

“So there you have it, in one easy-to-remember phrase. See how easy it is to understand these cheap-labor conservatives. The more ignorant and destitute people there are –- desperate for any job they can get –- the cheaper the cheap-labor conservatives can get them to work.

“Try it. Every time you respond to a cheap-labor conservative …, look for the ‘cheap labor’ angle. Trust me, you’ll find it. I can even show you the ‘cheap labor’ angle in things like the ‘war on drugs’, and the absurd conservative opposition to alternative energy.

“Next, make that moniker –- cheap-labor conservatives –- your ‘standard reference’ to the other side. One of the last revisions I made to this article was to find every reference to ‘conservatives’, ‘Republicans’, ‘right-wingers’, and ‘righties’, and replace it with ‘cheap-labor conservatives’. … If enough people will ‘get with the program’, it won’t be long before you can’t look at an editorial page, listen to the radio, turn on the TV, or log onto your favorite message board without seeing the phrase ‘cheap labor conservatives’ – and have plenty of examples to reinforce the message.

“By election day … every politically sentient American should understand exactly what a ‘cheap labor conservative’ is, and what he stands for.”

“Now if you stop right here, you will have enough ammunition to hold your own with a cheap-labor conservative in any public debate. … But if you really want to rip the heart out of cheap-labor conservative ideology, you may want to invest just a little bit more effort. It isn’t all that complicated, [just] a bit more detailed than what we have covered so far.

“Less Government And Cheap Labor

“‘Less Government’ is the central defining right-wing slogan. And yes, it’s all about ‘cheap labor’.

“Included within the slogan ‘less government’ is the whole conservative set of assumptions about the nature of the ‘free market’ and government’s role in that market ….

“In fact, the whole ‘public sector/private sector’ distinction is an invention of the cheap-labor conservatives. They say that the ‘private sector’ exists outside and independently of the ‘public sector’. The public sector, according to cheap-labor ideology, can only ‘interfere’ with the ‘private sector’, [which] is ‘inefficient’ and ‘unprincipled’. Using this ideology, the cheap-labor ideologue paints himself as a defender of ‘freedom’ against ‘big government tyranny’.

“In fact, the whole idea that the ‘private sector’ is independent of the public sector is totally bogus. In fact, ‘the market’ is created by public laws, public institutions and public infrastructure.

“But the cheap-labor conservative isn’t really interested in ‘freedom’. What he wants is the ‘privatized tyranny’ of industrial serfdom, the main characteristic of which is –- you guessed it -– ‘cheap labor’.

“For proof, you need only look at exactly what constitutes ‘big government tyranny’ and what doesn’t … cheap-labor conservatives are BIG supporters of the most oppressive and heavy handed actions the government takes.

“Cheap-labor conservatives are consistent supporters of the generous use of capital punishment. They say that ‘government can’t do anything right’ -– except apparently, kill people. Indeed, they exhibit classic conservative unconcern for the … possibility that the government might … execute the wrong man.

“Cheap-labor conservatives complain about the ‘Warren Court’, ‘handcuffing the police’ and giving ‘rights to criminals’. It never occurs to them, that our criminal justice system is set up to protect innocent citizens from abuses or just plain mistakes by government officials –- you know, the ones who can’t do anything right.

“Cheap-labor conservatives support the ‘get tough’ and ‘lock ‘em up’ approach to virtually every social problem …. In fact, it’s the only approach they support. As for the 2,000,000 people we have in jail today –- a higher percentage of our population than any other nation on earth –- they say our justice system is ‘too lenient’.

“Cheap-labor conservatives -– you know, the ones who believe in ‘freedom’ – say our crime problem is because … we’re too ‘permissive’. How exactly do you set up a ‘free’ society that isn’t ‘permissive’?

“Cheap-labor conservatives want all the military force we can stand to pay for and never saw a weapons system they didn’t like.

“Cheap-labor conservatives support every right-wing authoritarian hoodlum in the third world.

“Cheap-labor conservatives support foreign assassinations, covert intervention in foreign countries, and every other ‘black bag’ operation the CIA can dream up, even against constitutional governments elected by the people of those countries.

“Cheap-labor believers in ‘freedom’ think it’s the government’s business if you smoke a joint or sleep with somebody of your own gender.

“Cheap-labor conservatives support our … concentration camp down at Guantanamo Bay. They also support these ‘secret tribunals’ with ‘secret evidence’ and virtually no judicial review of the trials and sentences. Then they say that liberals are ‘Stalinists’.

“And let’s not forget this perennial item on the agenda. Cheap-labor conservatives want to ‘protect our national symbol’ from ‘desecration’. They also support legislation to make the Pledge of Allegiance required by law. Of course, it is they who desecrate the flag every time they wave it to support their cheap-labor agenda.

“Sounds to me like the cheap-labor conservatives have a peculiar definition of ‘freedom’. I mean, just what do these guys consider to be ‘tyranny'[?] That’s easy. Take a look.

“‘Social spending’ otherwise known as ‘redistribution’. While they don’t mind tax dollars being used for killing people, using their taxes to feed people is ‘stealing’.

“Minimum wage laws.

“Every piece of legislation ever proposed to improve working conditions, including the eight hour day, OSHA regulations, and even Child Labor laws.

“Labor unions, who ‘extort’ employers by collectively bargaining.

“Environmental regulations and the EPA.

“Federal support and federal standards for public education.

“Civil rights legislation. There are still cheap-labor conservatives today who were staunch defenders of ‘Jim Crow’ … [a]pparently, federal laws ending segregation were ‘tyranny’, but segregation itself was not.

“Public broadcasting – which is virtually the only source for classical music, opera, traditional theatre, traditional American music …. This from the people constantly braying about the decay of ‘the culture’. …

“See the pattern? Cheap-labor conservatives support every coercive and oppressive function of government, but call it ‘tyranny’ if government does something for you ….

“300 billion dollars a year for interest payments on the national debt … that are a direct transfer to wealthy bond holders ….

“That’s all in addition to the Defense budget – large chunks of which go to corporate defense contractors.

“Is the pattern becoming clearer? These cheap-labor Republicans have no problem at all opening the public purse for corporate interests. It’s ‘social spending’ on people who actually need assistance that they just ‘can’t tolerate’.

“And now you know why. Destitute people work cheaper, while a harsh police state keeps them suitably terrorized.”

(Roger Rabbit Note: Although I did not request specific permission to substantially reprint this article here — it takes too long — I’m sure the author won’t mind my reproducing it on a liberal blog, as it is already found in many places.]

@34 “We have lost track of the purpose of society. It isn’t to funnel all the money to a few people at the top.”

They certainly think so. Which is strange, because trickle-down-nothing ideology’s loudest shills tend to be at the bottom. They must believe they’ll be rewarded for shining the plutocrats’ shoes, or something, even though that has never happened in the past. (Plutocrats don’t get and stay rich by giving money away.) Or maybe the driving force behind poor people doing dirty propaganda for rich people is they’re gullible enough to still believe America is a “land of opportunity” and they’ll be plutocrats someday, too. I don’t know; I can’t read their minds. Anyway, how could anyone read minds as dense as spent uranium?

Whenever an election rolls around, just remember who these people are, and what they stand for. They’re trailerpark trash sucking up to the greediest and most ruthlessly selfish scumbugs in the entire Animal Kingdom. So why on earth would anyone vote for them?

This raises an interesting point. Will the S.C. workers get the same health benefits as Puget Sound’s unionized Boeing workers? Or will Boeing dump their health care on the government (i.e., the taxpayers) the same way Wal-Mart does?

@17 “So most companies need to work on holding and reducing those costs through lower wages, less benefits, outsourcing (anywhere) …”

Yep, this is the Republican answer to every problem: Make people work harder for lower wages … or put them out of work altogether.

Exactly who is going to fly on those planes? Certainly not workers who can barely feed their families.

What’s wrong with ideology that’s for higher wages, and more and better jobs?

We understand how competitive business works, asshole. We also understand how government policies encourage business decisions that hurt American workers. Apparently you do not understand how pervasively these destructive corporate decisions are influenced by the rightwing ideology that has infiltrated public policy over the last 30 years. The answer is not scrapping capitalism but changing the misguided government policies that are based on the conservative thinking that has done so much harm to the American people. For example, we need a national labor law that covers everyone, and preempts state right-to-work laws, so states and communities are not pitted against each other in an economic race to the bottom. We need to end the tax breaks that reward companies for sending American jobs to low-wage foreign competitors — that isn’t protectionism, it’s just common sense. Above all, we need to change the conservative culture that says workers are disposable commodities — that should be socially and politically unacceptable, because it’s destroying our communities, nation, and economy.

@20 “Airlines are under the crunch to make their fleet more fuel efficient.”

This argument is fine, as far as it goes. But fuel costs aren’t the reasons airlines are broke. The industry as a whole hasn’t made a profit for decades. Why? The answer is simple. Look at the fares. How the hell can they make a profit by flying people coast-to-coast for $199? Destructive price competition is killing them.

Okay, cheap fares are a good thing for consumers, you may argue. Yes and no. Cheap fares have led to maintenance shortcuts that have caused crashes. Slamming into the ocean at 500 mph isn’t good for consumers. Cheap fares have also resulted in people being packed like sardines into aluminum cans with barely room to breathe. I don’t see the competitive market working to give me a choice between a sardine ticket to Chicago for $249 or more leg and elbow room for, say, an extra $150 or $250. The only choice the competitive market gives me is between a $249 sardine ticket or a $1500 first-class ticket. Why hasn’t the competitive market offered something in-between? Competition doesn’t seem to work in this market.

In the old days, when fares were regulated, air travel was expensive and limited to relatively few people … but airplanes weren’t cattle cars like they are today. In the unregulated market, airlines have sacrificed everything — including comfort and safety — in their race to the bottom for the cheapest fares. Is that what we consumers really want? Has anyone in the industry bothered to ask?

@20 “There have been measurement issues in this disparate manufacturing process.”

There also have been health problems arising from this manufacturing process. Interesting how you talk about “measurement issues” but disregard “people.” Yes, people — have you forgotten that Boeing’s early foray into carbon-fiber manufacturing technology made many workers ill — and Boeing denied that anything was wrong with them? The fact is, rock hatchling, you don’t give a shit about the welfare and wellbeing of human beings.

The Raven croaks at the elephant in the room, which is: Chinese trade and currency policy. The USA can cut manufacturing costs as much as it want, but China’s current policy is to set currency prices to undersell the USA. Until that changes–and the change will hurt–the USA is going to have a devil of a time maintaining domestic wages, and exporting anything other than raw materials.

This situation has built up over the past decade, perhaps longer–can anyone cite a good history?–and conservatives participated. Especially, the Bush II administration participated. I wonder why, really. I would have thought that the nationalist faction of the conservatives would have been up in arms, but the truth of the matter is that the nationalists seem to have been much more interested in arm than production, forgetting that it takes wealth to fight wars.

To date the weakest counter argument made by those who hate this decision is also the most arrogant: “they are too dumb in SC to make airplanes”.

Well, anybody who has seen the 787 manufacturing line knows that there is not really much there. Big assemblies come in and get put together with a few fixtures. Wiring is performed, etc. The overhead crane is the major infrastructure there.

There are lots of workers in places like St. Louis, Wichita, SoCal, etc. who are looking for work and can fill the job slots in SC. These folks are just as capable and smart as IAM workers in Seattle. The “intelligence” argument is so obnoxious it make me sick. Unfortunately, its all too common in this town.

10/29/2009 at 11:31 pm

Also, consider the impact of the B&O and regulatory climate.

The KLOWNS here are not interested in a reasonable dialogue. They just screech meaningless, hateful verbage and pro-Union rhetoric. It accomplishes nothing.

The so-called “conservatives” are really just the old slavers. Legalize slavery and they’ll all be happy again. They just cannot fathom why anyone who actually works for a living would ever want to do anything but stand at an assembly line for 16 hours a day. after all, honest people never complain about anything and should learn their place and just submit to the superior will of the wealth classes. It is divinely mandated. The will of God supersedes all other considerations.

Sleep? Taking time to care for your kids? Eat healthy food? Maintaining your house? Thats all just liberal/socialist treason talk. You don’t need to be “educated”, you just need more training. You don’t need to stay healthy if you can be replaced when you get sick or hurt yourself, thats what “personal responsibility” is all about. Decent, honest people never need medical care or concern themselves with such whiny liberal concepts as staying healthy or learning new things. Thats communism.

Why, I’ll bet that spuddypud and Cynical the nazi are true americans. They never get sick, and they were born into incredible wealth by the will and grace of God, by that birthright that is theirs.

Go back to stormfront ya cheesedicks, your rhetoric and pissy small-dick complaining about what the world should be is just old. Your kind died out with the civil rights acts, the magna carta and the realization of the vast majority of people in this country that we are better than our enemies and rivals, in that we do not need to engage in the same tactics they use against us to win at whatever game is on the table. Now, you’re just part of the anarchist criminal element. I guess Reagan knew what he was doing when he shut down all the mental hospitals. Thats the new gooper base. Racists, pathological liars, bi-polar assholes with no sense of morality and no desire for anything but money. Who needs moral structure when you can just buy people off or kill them when they wont be bought?

Maybe the state should dig into the records at The Dept. of Ecology and figure out the cost to clean up all the pollution generated by the “Lazy B Ranch” over the years and stick ’em with a nice fat bill. Maybe seize assets until they cough up the cash. Let South Carolina foot the bill if they want a sweatshop airplane company so bad. We didn’t just bend over for these guys when it came to taxes. We let them rake in billions at our expense in other ways too. And we’re just gonna let ’em walk away? I don’t think so. Bankrupt ’em and make ’em start over. South Carolina is just a temporary stop on the journey to Mexico and China anyway.

Those nice tax breaks Boeing is expecting from SC may come to haunt them. Not only is Airbus counter-suing over the state tax breaks, but the EU has sued over subsides in the form of research and development funding from the Department of Defense and NASA. The E.U. also claims the company enjoys “significant” federal tax breaks.

Boeing is expected to lose both suits, leading to fresh WTO negotiations over what constitutes fair subsidies.

I have felt for 45 years that a filthy spot in Washington is the merchant of death named Boeing.

This company was bankrupt in 1927 and has never in it’s entire history ever made a profit. It is simply one huge welfare recipient. There is not, never has been nor never will be be a legitimate reason for this abomination to not die.

Yeah, I mean all of you people that were so proud to play your part in the defense of democracy. Hey, this is not a democracy. All of the “profits” came from either covert or overt government subsidies. The “profits” were only political payoffs that you got because you sent to Washington the filth that you sent. There is not one elected official of Washington from 1927 until 2009 that should not be convicted of accepting bribes.

There is not, never has been and never will be an aircraft manufacturing facility that will make an honest profit. It is, in fact, totally impossible.

Now stop whining and actually get a damn job. The incredibly high paid welfare is over.

Yeah, I hope that the Chinese buy Boeing and find out that there is no profit in building airliners, simply because there is no need for that fast of communication, comprendez?

There are new devices called telephones, there are things called ships.

The most inefficient way to move anything is via airliners. Yeah, idiots I need those refuelers and airplanes like I need another hole in my billfold. I hope that I pass through Everett in 20 years and see what Detroit is now. Your cash was out of our damn taxes, assholes.

Few point of fact here: The cause of Boeing demise was when Boeing merged with McDonnell Douglas and the McDonnell management that killed Douglas commerical (with help froma heavily subsidiesed airbus) now is killing Boeing.

Union made the middle class and with no middle class no airline business.

Boeing has not built a 737 line in china.

Uptown, are you from Europe? Your quoting airbus play book on WTO issue, for others note airbus parent EADS does alot of defense work in Europe and then airbus claims Boeing benefits from defense work.

@47 “I think we should assume, from their actions of the past decade, that conservatives are prepared to write off Taiwan. / Because that’s the price China will demand for not squeezing our nuts.”

Oh, good point. I suppose the neocons had already written Taiwan off, or at least Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al. did. (& I have a Taiwanese colleague, too, so this will affect me personally.) Japan seems to be taking the lead in forming an East Asia community, and I suppose this has something to do with it. It all sounds unpleasantly like the runup to a really big war, however.

The “totally robotic airplane”…yeah, I’ll bet Boeing’s privately pitched that to the airline brass, and it made them cream their jeans. Think about eliminating the pilots altogether, and being one of 250 poor souls strapped into some contraption run by “Johnny-Cab” software from Redmond, the Home of the General Protection Fault.

In reality, most of the commercial airline business is a dead man walking. The economics have only worked so far because the carriers have been able to fly antique aircraft three or four times what was their original expected lifespan. With composite-built aircraft, nobody knows. This isn’t like the Air Force’s “hanger queens”…what sort of failures are going to crop up over years of material fatigue and exposure to the elements, and how to repair aging aircraft that are basically glued together, are going to be learned the hard way. Expect to see some things like the “pop-top 737” incident that happened in Hawaii.

If jetliners only lasted the 5 to 10 years they were originally expected to, we’d still be mostly going between cities on trains.

Beyond that, air travel between continents may continue to make sense, but between destinations connected by rail or road, it’s going to be increasingly difficult to justify the use of flying machines that gobble fossil fuels and foul the atmosphere.

Roger Rabbit @28 I actually missed the rare doubleheader that included 844 visiting recently. Some steam shops are still around, my favorite is the PRR’s Altoona Works, now owned by Norfolk Southern. They did not just repair locomotives there, but also built them(just like NS predecessor Norfolk and Western Roanoke Shops once did, but I believe that shop is a museum right now), and NS is once again continuing the tradition in Altoona, with this time, a battery-electric switcher prototype, although the electricity charging it, might be coming from coal, as in the case of this photo of the prototype, NS999, on the end of a coal train. It was like many new clean switchers, a rebuild of an older locomotive, but some are being built new. The donor unit for 999 had an interesting history, renumbered many a time, just with the history of Norfolk Southern, the locomotive was originally built for the Pennsylvania Railroad.

The Bombardier CSeries jet I mentioned about, it’s seating capacity will be depending on model and layout, around 100-149 passengers, as I said, putting the bigger of it’s 2 models in the 737’s low range. Will be interesting to see how other manufacturers around the world step up. Now the 737 has reliability going for it, but who knows if the Y1(the codename for a development project for the 737 replacement, the 787 was the Y2 or Yellowstone 2) gets built as the 797 will it be built in China or SC, or Renton. By the way, the portion of the Renton plant made surplus when the 757 was shut down sure did not go totally to waste like a rust belt. I am sure the developers already have their sites set on the rest of the plant.

It seems to me the best strategy for you KLOWNS of Progressivism is to put your energy into something postive to rebuild the Puget Sound Economy. Start by repealing onerous Legislation, reduce the size & cost of government and give incentives to businesses to create REAL, sustainable living wage jobs.

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